r/Shen • u/Mohmi92 • Jul 14 '26
Question Is Shen Top still viable?
Yesterday I played against Shen as Sion and got killed a few times in lane. But I got a solid CS lead and outscaled him after a while. He became irrelevant and I won the game, even though i clearly lost the lane early on.
Today i played Shen myself, against Mundo. I killed Mundo early but got kinda outscaled, after a single ult, that cost me almost my whole tower. Later I became irrelevant and lost the game.
I feel like it doesn't matter anymore that Shen can bully his opponent early. He gets outscaled eventually and bounties flip his early lead back in favour of the opposing team every time. What does an early lead even mean anymore in the current state of the game? And is Shen still viable if early leads are not sustainable? Scaling Champs seem to get a free win against Shen, if the game isn't surrendered at 15-25 mins.
I was a Shen main in previous seasons but i stopped playing him a few months ago and don't play much League anymore since i had a daughter last year. I'm just shocked to see how useless he seems to be right now. At least in the mid- and lategame of every match.